Voice Actor Culture and Anime Dubbing and Subtitles

Where voice actors stand in Japanese anime

In Japanese animation, the voice is treated as part of the character. When a new show is announced, the voice cast is revealed alongside the director and studio, and many viewers choose what to watch by the actors' names. It is common for one actor to voice the same character for many years, until that voice becomes the character's identity, which is why a cast change in a long-running series makes headlines. The industry is organised enough to have dedicated training schools and talent agencies that develop voice acting as a profession of its own.

Recording before or after the pictures

Japanese TV anime is generally voiced after the visuals have been produced to some degree. Tight schedules mean actors often record against unfinished footage or storyboards, imagining scenes whose movement they cannot fully see. The reverse approach, recording voices first and then animating mouth shapes and movement to match, is common in American feature animation. The first demands the skill of fitting lines into a fixed length; in the second, the animation follows the rhythm of a freely delivered performance.

Casting conventions worth knowing

Major roles are filled through auditions or direct casting, and popular actors may appear in several shows in the same season. A few conventions surprise newcomers. Knowing them explains why a voice so often sounds strangely familiar, and makes reading the end credits more rewarding.

• Boys' roles: young boys' voices are commonly played by adult women
• Doubling: one actor covers several minor parts in the same show
• Recasting in long series: a new actor inherits a role as generations change
• Heightened delivery: a wider emotional range than live-action acting is the norm

Work beyond the screen

Japanese voice actors do not stay in the recording booth. Their work extends to promotional radio and online shows, stage events with the cast, and songs and concerts performed in character. It is not unusual for voice actors to have singing careers of their own. In anime fan culture, a voice actor can therefore become someone fans follow independently of any one show. At events, follow the organiser's rules such as bans on recording and photography, and keep the actor's private life separate from the characters they play; that is basic courtesy.

What marks Korean dubbing

Korea has a tradition of broadcasters hiring staff voice actors through open auditions to dub foreign films and animation. Japanese anime shown on Korean TV in the past was often localised, with character names, place names and even on-screen text changed to Korean ones, reflecting broadcasting standards and the target age of the time. Today the norm is to keep the original names and setting, and some shows survive in different versions with different names and voices depending on when they aired. That explains why people searching for a show from their childhood often get lost over unfamiliar titles and names.

What makes anime subtitles especially hard

Japanese has many ways to reveal personality and relationships through speech style alone, and conveying them is a major challenge for anime subtitles. When the subtitles and the spoken line feel different to someone who understands the original, it is usually because of the points below. As a result, the impression a character makes can vary noticeably between translators. The limited number of characters that fit on one subtitle line makes these choices harder still.

• Honorifics: the nuance of forms like senpai or san is hard to match in another language
• Verbal tics: distinctive sentence endings sound odd if carried over literally
• First person: Japanese has several words for 'I', and the personality they signal is easily lost
• Wordplay and songs: keeping both sound and meaning is close to impossible

Choosing original audio or dub for anime

Because anime is voiced from scratch, the original audio and a dub start from the same place: neither is the 'real' voice of an on-screen actor. Resistance to dubbing is therefore lower than with live-action films, and the choice can depend on the show and the situation. For a series you love, watching once each way is a good way to compare how differently the same character comes across.

• Shows driven by vocal performance: listen in the original for rhythm and intonation
• Information-heavy action or mystery shows: use the dub and keep your eyes on the screen
• Watching with children: a dub, if they are too young to read subtitles
• Slice-of-life shows left playing: whichever is easier to follow by ear

Following voice actors to find more shows

If a character's voice won you over, that actor's filmography is a good place to find your next show. Following a director is a way to match a show's sensibility; following an actor is a way to discover the range of a performance. Seeing the same actor play a completely different personality brings home how wide voice acting can be. Prolific actors appear in shows of every genre and intensity, though, so check the age rating and description first. Recording and sharing event or broadcast footage can infringe copyright and personal image rights, so enjoy it through official channels.